Tag Archives: weight training

“Weight-loss” or “weight-gain” are too abstract to help us perceive what is involved in the overweight casualties of the New Millennium.

Truer terms are “Weight-shifting” and “Mind-Body War.” For-profit, the Weight-Shifters strategically bomb us with ill-messaging about food, good-times, and ourselves. We are taught that we are significant because we are brand-supporters. Tactically, we are disarmed by bright lights, warm colors, and enticing photos of food and drink.

Crazily, the image of ourselves as fit can even make us indulge, thinking we can “take it” at the drive-through, or that “fit people eat here.” We are guerrilla stricken during commutes, when we are tired, rushed, feeling deprived, getting in late, and grappling with daily problems. We are “too tired to fix dinner.”

Yet there is hope. There are natural and organic grocers, and grocery sections. There are often free samples of healthy fare at the grocery stores to ease the urgency of hunger. Or just buy a small green juice first, and sip while shopping.

Our Appetites

Our appetites are the most vulnerable, non-critical, and primitive pressure points in this weight-shifting war. Each assault exploits the tensions of the busy-life schema that put us in urgently hungry states of the primitive brain.

Each attack, and each battle lost, takes a permanent toll. The hit-and-run nature of the anti-health raids impels us to hit-and-run ourselves with the false notion that it will only be “this time.”

Mind and Emotions

A sober, stoic war-footing toward these messaging phenomena would help galvanize and unify our minds and emotions against these false-comfort attacks. Think about who you want to be when attacked, not what you want right then.

True comfort is being truly free and under control of our life direction. Shopping and preparation burns calories, and deepens our relationship to fresher, purer food.

Body

When we eat the refined, processed, sodium-filled, grease-bombs that explode in our tummies and calm our nerves, we are descending into sickness. Thinking the situation through is not so easy.

Thinking outside of our bodily frenzies is the beginning of freedom. Detaching a part of our higher minds to float above our animal-drives can help us become self-aware of our total beings, not just our Pavlovian-Lowest Common Denominator. We can trump our immediate appetites.

Conclusion

Adaptive fitness assumes that eating, drinking, and sleeping are self-trainable behaviors every bit as much as exercise and sport are trainable. We can eat, drink, and sleep in accord with who and how we want to be.

This 2008 piece is relevant to people who are undertaking weight loss. At the link, you will find other very useful related pieces on exercise, attitudes toward exercise and aspects of weight loss. A hat tip to my AFPA newsletter for referencing this and other Science Daily pieces.

In Winter, hibernation must be on our minds, or fitness clubs everywhere would not be marketing the beach-ready fitness routines to motivate people. In general, I’m talking about those who don’t generally do Winter sports, or don’t have access, but who do the basics: walking, running and some form of weight training.

If that is you, here is something to consider during your Winter weight training workouts. Find a window that admits sunshine. On an Indian Summer day, find a grass spot or patio. Maybe you have a warm spot outside blocked from wind on cold days. Then, train in the sun. Obviously, if you spend more than 15 minutes directly in the sun, consider sunscreen with the desired SPF. Enjoy your strength training!